Dallin Baldwin and Faculty Mentor: Don Cook, Department of Music

The purpose of my research was to better understand the choral accompaniment techniques of
English organists. Most of the choral music that is performed in the United States today is
accompanied by the piano. Yet there are great choral masterpieces that are neglected because
there are no organists that have sufficient training and experience to perform them. In Great
Britain, however, choirs are often accompanied by organists. Several of the top choirs in the
world are located in Great Britain and have resident organists to accompany them. In my
research, I studied the techniques of English organists in accompanying choirs.

Many of the techniques of accompanying choirs are unknown to organists. This is mainly due to
the fact that accompanying at the organ poses several challenges that are unique to the organ. For
example, when accompanying, it is vital to keep your eyes on the conductor. However, when
playing the organ, there are so many things that take your attention away from the conductor,
such as playing the pedals with your feet or pulling stops. Also, in many cases the organist is far
from the conductor, making it even harder to see them. Because of these and other challenges
that the organist faces, conductors will often resort to having a pianist accompany the choir.
Because Great Britain has such a rich tradition of using organists to accompany their choirs, I
discovered what techniques they use to overcome the obstacles that are unique to the organ.

For my study, I set up one-on-one interviews with some of Great Britain’s finest organists,
including organists at St. Paul’s Cathedral, King’s College, Cambridge, and Westminster Abbey.
In these interviews I talked with these organists about their history at the organ, their experience
with accompanying choirs, and their advice on how to be successful at accompanying at the
organ. In addition to interviewing these fine organists, I was also able to observe many of them
as they accompanied choirs in rehearsals and performances. This added a valuable insight of
seeing them in action. I was able to observe their techniques in accompanying and working with
choirs. I recorded each interview with an audio recorder and took notes during rehearsals and
performances. I later transcribed these interviews and my notes so that I could more easily search
them and locate relevant information.

I discovered two main results from my research: first, British organists prepare and practice their
the music for accompaniments as much as or even more than their solo repertoire, and second,
they employ a technique that I call the “British crescendo.” In regards to their preparation,
British organists spend time practicing their accompaniments and preparing their scores. They
analyze the text and set registrations accordingly. Very rarely do they work on this with the
director. They are given the freedom and respect to prepare them on their own. This is especially
interesting given the limited amount of practice time that the organist usually spends with the
choir. In many churches, the organist will practice with the choir for anywhere from 15 minutes
to an hour before a service. Therefore, the organist must come to rehearsals prepared.

The second result I discovered was the “British crescendo.” I have called it this because British
organists have developed a system to seamlessly change dynamic levels whether over a short
period of a few measures or even over an entire page. This is difficult to achieve at the organ
because you have to either change registrations, which can be abrupt and jarring, or open and
close the expression pedals, which usually won’t give a large range of dynamic contrast.
Therefore, they employ a combination of changing registrations as they also open and close the
expression pedal. In talking about this crescendo process, Simon Johnson, organist at St. Paul’s
Cathedral in London said the following:
“On an English organ we’ll set up the divisional pistons in a crescendo, so 1 is quiet and 8
is loud… you’ll start quite soft on say swell 1 and great 1 and you might then close the
swell box and go up to swell 2 whilst the swell box is closed and then you would open
the swell box and maybe hit great piston 2 whilst the swell box is open. And then you
would close the swell box again and hit swell piston 3 and then open it again and hit great
piston 3 and so on. So the swell box is at maximum volume within its piston when you
hit the great piston. What that means is that you are basically covering all the bumps
effectively. Sometimes you might go from swell 2 to swell 4, but as long as the box is
closed, and it’s a good box (which they generally are in this country), you are barely
aware that you have added to the swell until you have opened the box, which you can do
as gradually as you’d like. And then by the time you have opened the box, the swell is
much louder than the great and you can add to the great and cover it. You do a similar
thing in reverse when you do a decrescendo.”
This gives an example of how intensive it is to achieve a good crescendo at the organ. It requires
years of practice and competency at managing the organ console. However, by going through
this process, they are able to seamlessly crescendo or decrescendo in a way that follows the
dynamic expression of the music.

In talking with many of these organists and learning about their history in playing the organ, I
discovered that there is a significant choral tradition in Great Britain that influences the
organists. Many of these organists began their musical training as boy choristers (singers) in
local churches. While there they would sing music from the classic choral repertoire. They
became familiar with the sound of the organ and how it works with a choir. Often, they would be
required to learn to play a keyboard instrument and chose the organ. When they left the choir at
around the age of 12, they would continue to take lessons with the church organist and also play
for some church services. They would then become organ scholars in college, particularly at
Cambridge or Oxford. After their studies they would begin to play for churches and accompany
choirs.

In discovering this tradition, I realized that these organists have been exposed to choral music
that is accompanied by the organ at a very young age. They are able to know how to best
accompany a choir because they know what it is like to sing in a choir. They have learned to
execute the British crescendo because it was taught to them and passed down from their teachers.
They honed in these skills as organ scholars in college. Now as professional organists they
employ these skills at least weekly in worship services as they accompany the church choir.
There is much to learn from British organists in the way that they accompany choirs at the organ